Man imprisoned for manslaughter is suspect in New Britain serial murders

NEW BRITAIN — Law enforcement officials Wednesday identified two more of the seven victims of a suspected serial killer, including a missing Wethersfield woman whose killer has been imprisoned in Connecticut since 2005.

At a press conference, police said they found the remains of Nilsa Arizmendi, a Wethersfield woman who was reported missing in 2003 when she was 34, and Danny Lee Whistnant, 44, who was reported missing in New Britain on June 25, 2003.

Arizmendi's killer, William Devin Howell, has been in prison since 2005. Sources close to the investigation have said that he is a suspect in the other slayings.

But when asked at Wednesday's press conference about Howell, Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane said only, "He's been convicted of killing Nilsa and that's it as far as conclusions can be made at this time." Meanwhile, detectives in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia have been notified about the investigation into Howell, sources said.

New Britain State's Attorney Brian Preleski said that no arrest was imminent. Authorities, however, prominently displayed Howell's photo on a slide screen during the press conference.

And in praising a detective who put together the original case against Howell a decade earlier, Wethersfield Police Chief James Cetran told reporters, "I can't imagine how many people didn't get hurt because Mr. Howell was convicted of manslaughter in 2005. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are better off because of it."

Police have already said that the remains of four other women — Diane Cusack, 53, of New Britain; Joyvaline Martinez, 23, of East Hartford; Mary Jane Menard, 40, of New Britain; and Melanie Ruth Camilini, who was 29 when she disappeared in January 2003 in Waterbury — were buried in a wooded, 15-acre site behind a shopping plaza at 593 Hartford Road.

Police zeroed in on the serial killer's burial ground in 2007 after a hunter found human bones there. Last month, detectives from a special task force created to investigate the serial killings returned with an FBI cadaver-sniffing dog and ground-penetrating radar.

Police have released photos showing the seven victims killed by a suspected New Britain serial killer. The suspect in the case has been identified by sources as William Devin Howell.

(New Britain Police)

Howell, 45, a drifter with criminal convictions in several states from Connecticut to Georgia, was charged in May 2005 with killing Arizmendi. Although authorities did not locate Arizmendi's body at the time of Howell's arrest, they prosecuted him based on her blood's being found on a seat cushion in Howell's van.

Blood from another woman was also found there at the time, soaked through the van's carpet and plywood floor. At the time of Howell's sentencing, prosecutors issued a plea to the public for any possible information leading to the identity of that woman.

Court records said that Howell lived in Connecticut, North Carolina and Virginia in the early 2000s. While in New Britain, he lived at 307 Washington St. with a girlfriend and did landscaping in the area. He also owned a landscaping company in Hampton, Va., called AAA Landscape & Maintenance. His family was from Hampton and he visited there in the winter.

In April 2004, Howell became a suspect in Arizmendi's disappearance, and North Carolina authorities seized a van from his home in Windsor, N.C. Inside, investigators discovered that several of the seat cushions had been thrown out, but underneath some carpet they found red stains that appeared to be blood. Tests showed that there was blood from two separate sources in the van, court records said.

A DNA sample from Howell and DNA samples from relatives of Arizmendi were examined, and a lab determined that one of the DNA samples was 99 percent likely to have come from Arizmendi, according to court records.

While awaiting trial, Howell was arrested again and charged with witness tampering, court records said.

One day when he was returning from court, Howell struck up a conversation with another inmate named Jerry Mortimer. When he found out that Mortimer was in the same prison as a guy named Thomas Rodrigues Jr., he asked Mortimer to deliver the following message to Rodrigues: "Tell him I am going to kill his family, especially his mother," court records said.

To buttress Mortimer's story, state police talked to Jonathan Mills, a convicted murderer from Guilford, who had been a cellmate of Howell's at the Cheshire Correctional Center. Mills told investigators that Howell told him the story about telling another inmate to pass on his threat to Rodrigues. Mills told police that he told Howell he "was pretty stupid" to threaten another inmate. Mills would not sign a statement or agree to testify, court records said.

Rodrigues was supposed to be a key witness against Howell in the Arizmendi case because Howell had allegedly told Rodrigues that he had killed her, according to court records.

Rodrigues took notes and turned them over to detectives. At one point, Howell told Rodrigues that he hoped police didn't find Arizmendi's body because that "would be a big problem" for him. But shortly after the trial began in January 2007, Howell pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter under the Alford doctrine, meaning that he did not admit guilt but acknowledged that the state had enough evidence to get a conviction. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2007.

At sentencing, Howell insisted that he did not kill Arizmendi, telling Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford that the blood stains were from a physical fight that Arizmendi had in the van with her boyfriend.

Howell later tried to get his plea thrown out, alleging that he only took it because his public defender at the time, Ken Simon, pressured him into agreeing to it, court records said.

Inside Howell's 1985 Ford Econoline van, detectives also found a tape titled, "Score Fantasy Girls," and five other videotapes as well as a rock that appeared to have blood on it. Police released images of two of the woman on the videotapes, seeking the public's help in identifying them, although neither woman has yet been identified, court records said.

Relatives of Menard and Martinez sat at the back of the room during the press conference Wednesday afternoon, but did not speak. Preleski and New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell both emphasized that the Whistnant and Arizmendi families were shaken and did not want to speak publicly.

"These victims were real people with real names," Wardwell said.

Wednesday's press conference was held 10 years to the day of the execution of Connecticut's most notorious serial killer, Michael Ross, who was convicted of killing four young women and girls and who admitted killing four others.